


mateship

by facingthenorthwind (spacegandalf)



Series: space opera au [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space Opera, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 03:36:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17378822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacegandalf/pseuds/facingthenorthwind
Summary: Remus Lupin has never had friends before. He doesn't expect that to change at Pigfarts.





	mateship

**Author's Note:**

> once again, it's not a space opera if you think too hard about it, so i didn't. we're here to have fun and create nonsense xenobiology.
> 
> written for round one of hpft's great collab, for the theme 'new beginnings' and the challenge 'space opera'.

Remus Lupin was terrified as he arrived at Pigfarts, trying to make himself look small and non-threatening. It didn’t work particularly well, because he was already six foot tall and had plenty of growing left to do — not to mention the wickedly sharp teeth and large claws that made people edge away warily. The fact that he was half-human and looked fairly humanoid in most respects wasn’t even helpful, because everyone’s first impression was still his sheer _size_ , and everyone knew humans didn’t get that large.

Despite his test results being high enough to get him entrance to Pigfarts, the most prestigious school in the known galaxy, he had almost been turned away because of his… _problem_. That’s what his dad called it. It was a virus communicable by biting that caused a self-destructive hormone cycle that lowered his inhibitions and made him violent about once every moon cycle — and there was no cure. There was no treatment, even. His parents just shut him in the basement so he wouldn’t hurt anyone.

It had been bad enough being a pariah on his home planet, no one wanting to get too close to him lest they catch it, but then some core region scientist published a paper saying that non-Welbers could get it, though it was completely asymptomatic for them and it didn’t appear they could pass it on. It did absolutely _nothing_ to them, but all of a sudden the discrimination against Welbers increased tenfold. They were already seen as potentially violent and unpredictable, but now they were even _bigger_ risks--risks of infection to everyone else.

Remus had no idea how his dad got him into Pigfarts. He had learnt early that sometimes, the best thing to do was not to ask.

So he focused on making himself small, biting his claws down until they bled and not looking anyone in the eye. It was working fine until they were in their dormitory for their first night — he was sharing with some large, antlered boy; a shorter boy who looked in danger of being swallowed up by his own fur and a boy with the biggest ears (and eyes) that he had ever seen. 

He was pretty certain they all came from core planets, if their species and lack of major humanoid features were anything to go by. He planned to just make no noise and pretend he didn’t exist, as much as that was possible when you had to live in the same room as three other people, but he found himself cornered soon after he reached their dormitory.

Well, cornered was probably an unfair characterisation of what they did, it just felt like that. 

“Oi, what’s your name?” said Antler Boy.

“You’re a Welber, aren’t you? Blimey, I’ve never actually seen one of you for real. Is it true — I heard your hair was poisonous?” said Fur Boy.

“What? No,” Remus said, putting his hand to his hair defensively. “How would that even work?”

“Dunno,” Fur Boy said, shrugging. “So who are you? I’m Sirius, this is James and this is Peter.”

“You’re not going to eat us, right?” Ear Boy (Peter?) said, and Sirius elbowed him.

“You can’t ask people that! Just because he’s a Welber — I’m just as likely to eat you, aren’t I?”

Far from being reassured, Peter looked even more anxious at that, cornered by carnivores.

“No one’s going to eat you, Pete,” James said, taking a — was that a woodchip? A woodchip, then, out of his pocket and popping it in his mouth. “Pretty sure you get expelled for that.”

Remus wondered if he could just back away slowly and everyone would be distracted enough to forget he existed.

He made it about two metres before his plan was foiled.

“Where are you going? ‘Sbed time.” To demonstrate, James yawned, exposing a mouthful of teeth that looked terrifyingly regular, each tooth identical. No evil-looking fangs in sight. Remus wished they could swap.

“I — nowhere,” Remus said, quietly, resigned.

“Ignore Pete, we know you’re not going to eat us. Though, uh, could I — could I touch your hair? I wanna get a photo of it for my brother, it’ll settle an argument.” Sirius had the decency to look a little embarrassed about the request, but he still made it.

Remus wasn’t thrilled about being used as a photo prop, but better that than the alternative of being chased out of his own dormitory, he supposed.

“Either he believes me that your hair’s not poisonous or he has to admit I’m the bravest Bunt since Marvin,” Sirius says happily once James has taken the photo. “I’m not really bothered which.”

Thankfully, they all went to bed soon after, leaving Remus to stare into the darkness and wonder what the next seven years would be like.

* * *

The Great Hall was a cacophony of sound and Remus had never seen such a variety of food before the Welcome Feast the night before. It turned out that the bizarre sight of an impossible variety of species eating an even more impossible variety of food had lost none of its impact by breakfast the next morning. 

When he reached the Grybbinport table (they’d been sorted into houses in some mysterious and highly secretive ceremony by a machine that, rumour had it, read their brainwaves), James had his plate piled high with bark and a garnish of greens; Sirius was happily getting meat juices all over his snout; and Peter was using his long, thin fingers to pick up the wriggling grubs from his plate and put them in his mouth one by one. 

Before he could sit down, someone knocked into him and he put his hand right into Peter’s grubs as he tried to stop himself from falling. His uniform stuck to his skin with something the person had spilled on him — from the smell, he thought it was some kind of fruit juice.

“Oi, monster, better make sure you don’t lose it, I hear kids who get expelled are _disappeared_ ,” a voice sneered behind him, accompanied by a chorus of laughter. “Oh, have I made you _angry_?”

He had not made Remus angry, but Remus knew that was because it wasn’t that time in the moon cycle — who’s to say what he would be like on a bad day? He didn’t deserve to be here, endangering his fellow students merely by existing—

“You better watch where you’re going, or Remus will be the least of your problems.” Remus’s downward spiral of misery was interrupted by Sirius Black unexpectedly standing up and confronting his bully. When Remus turned around, Sirius was standing menacingly close to the boy, a small Globaurian. 

“Don’t you know he’s a Welber? I don’t know how you could possibly sleep in the same room as him without fearing for your life.”

“Remus wouldn’t hurt anyone,” Sirius insisted without a flicker of doubt or a beat of hesitation, and Remus was too shocked to say anything. Sirius didn’t even know him! Remus could absolutely hurt someone! He didn’t _want_ to, but he could! There were no guarantees! “Now shove off before I give you something to be _really_ scared of,” Sirius finished, and the kid left.

“You alright?” Sirius said, turning to Remus, and Remus nodded mutely. “He’s a total blarg, don’t listen to him.”

“I — you — you didn’t have to do that,” Remus settled on at last, trying to make his shoulders curl in on themselves so he could be small and unnoticeable. 

“Of course I did. Grybbinports have got to stick together,” Sirius said, giving him a smile that Remus hesitantly returned.

Perhaps Pigfarts wouldn’t be so bad.


End file.
